


Staring Contest

by flippantninny



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 21:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2166120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippantninny/pseuds/flippantninny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay so a while ago someone sent me a prompt, and it got lost in my inbox but it stuck with me, so I wrote this. It will have a few more chapters, probably three at most, and I will update it one day, but I'm awful and slow and it might be a while I'm sorry!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staring Contest

You blinked!" Carl yelled from beside the fire pit, "you blinked, I won!"

Daryl looked up from his pack to the argument starting a few feet away from him. Half the group was planning a run, one Daryl had opted to miss in favour of a hunting trip that afternoon (they hadn’t had a proper meal in a few days and the run was a quick, simple one), and the other half were crowded near the fire pit, taking turns to stare each other down.  
“No, you definitely blinked first,” Beth replied, he could hear her smile in her voice, “just before I did, you did not win.”

Carl was shaking his head, “yes I did, I totally won.”

"No you didn’t," Beth said.

Daryl could have watched them argue all day. Beth was great with Judith, and her abilities with the youngest Grimes appeared to extend to Carl as well, who was determined to be treated like an adult but able to be a kid when the company was right. It had been a while since anyone had seen Carl truly smiling. Not since the prison, and even before then he wasn’t exactly happy. But since they had found Beth he was smiling again. Everyone was, even Daryl. Even when arguing over something as trivial as a staring contest, Beth managed to have everyone around her grinning.

"Want another match?" Beth asked. Carl nodded excitedly back. Daryl watched Beth closed her eyes while Carl rapidly blinked his and Sasha counted down from three. As soon as she hit one Beth and Carl were staring at each other again, wide eyed and tense, neither daring to move a muscle.

Daryl watched as their facial expressions changed, Carl started to glare at Beth while Beth just smiled back, her bottom lip drawing in between her teeth. She was beautiful. Neither blinked as silence fell over the fire pit, until Sasha and Beth yelled, at the same time “He blinked!” and Carl groaned, kicking the table leg and muttering something under his breath that had everyone glad Rick wasn’t in the earshot.

Daryl tried not to laugh, he really did, but between Carl’s annoyance and Beth’s cute grin he couldn’t help letting a little chuckle out.

"Hey, what’re you laughing at?" Carl asked.

Daryl honestly wasn’t sure what he was laughing at, a fourteen year old boy annoyed at losing a staring contest? It wasn’t the sort of thing he would have ever laughed at, but when Beth was near all he seemed to want to do was laugh or smile or thank a god he’d never believed in that she was safe and with their family.

Daryl shrugged. “Laughin’ at you bein’ a little shit over a staring competition,” he said, smirking slightly.

"Oh yeah? I’d like to see you do better, old man," Carl replied, his voice challenging.

"I don’ play kids games," he said, looking back down at his pack, checking he had everything he would need.

"Scared you’ll lose?" Carl replied, and Daryl wouldn’t haver taken the bait, he really wouldn’t have, but when he looked back up Beth was staring at him, so wide eyed and inviting, and he didn’t think he could stay away if he tried. So Daryl sat up, moving his pack to the side and walking towards where the rest of them were sitting, "couldn’t even beat Beth, you think you can beat me?" he said to Carl as he walked, sitting next to Beth so he could face the boy.

"No, I wanna see you try and beat Beth, no one else here can, she’s the best," Carl said, and Daryl suddenly felt very nervous. Beth’s cheeks had started to redden beside him, probably from the compliment, he figured. Beth didn’t usually like being the center of attention, of course she was embarrassed about being called out as the best at anything. She was the best though, she was the best at most things, if you asked Daryl.

Daryl’s nerves, on the other hand, were stemming from the memory of the last time he had stared into Beth’s eyes. The funeral home, the conversation that had been interrupted by that damn dog and those damn walkers. The conversation they had never finished.

He had been pretending it hadn’t happened since she had returned. When he first saw her they had hugged, but since then he had been keeping his distance. Keeping her in his line of sight but out of his reach. He wasn’t sure he could stare into her eyes, and have her stare back, and be able to keep leaving that conversation unfinished.

"What, scared you’ll lose?" Carl asked again.

"No," Daryl replied, "stop bein’ annoying and count us in," he said, watching as Beth closed her eyes again when Carl began the count down.

Carl said one and Daryl immediately knew this was a bad idea.

This was a really bad idea.

Beth was way too close to him and all he could see was the blue in her eyes and the way her blonde hair was dancing against her cheek in his periphery. And the way her bottom lip was between her teeth again.

It was a sensory overload. All he could smell was Beth. All he could hear was her gentle breathing. He couldn’t touch or taste anything, but his mind was filling in the blanks, his imagination conjuring thoughts of the taste of her lips and the softness of her skin under his rough, weathered hands.

He wanted to lean forward, to close the distance between them. But he couldn’t, he was surrounded. Surrounded by Sasha and Carol and Maggie and Carl and too many people to fathom actually acknowledging the feelings he was feeling right now, feelings he didn’t understand and was scared to try and work out.

Half his brain was telling him to blink, to end the torture now and blink then run, leave the camp, go hunting, get some time to think.

But the other half couldn’t end this moment. Because Beth was staring at him with the same questioning look she had given him before the “oh” all those weeks ago. And she deserved to have an ending to this conversation, they both did.

Beth was sure he was going to kiss her. The way he was looking at her, it had to be a pre-kiss look, because no one had ever looked at her with such intense longing before, and she doubted anyone ever would again, and this moment was too thick and too tense to not end with a kiss. But he was just sitting there, staring at her. Her eyes were starting to hurt, but she refused to blink. Blinking would be ending this again, and she wouldn’t, couldn’t, let them lose another moment like this.

His eyes were blue. She knew they were blue, she’d seen them plenty of times before, but only now, staring into them in the middle of the day and not in flickering candle light, could she see how blue they were. They were almost green in places. His irises lined by a thick, dark blue, then immediately shifting into a bright, light blue. Beth had always said her favourite colour was yellow, but she was wrong, her favourite colour was Daryl Dixon’s eyes in the sunlight.

Then the blue was gone. It was only for a split second, but the blue was replaced with pale eyelid and long eyelashes and Daryl had blinked.

"See," Carl was yelling, "told you you couldn’t beat her."

But no one was listening to Carl. How could anyone focus on him when Daryl was getting up and walking away.

Except, Beth realised, people were listening to Carl, and laughing, and congratulating her for winning, and acting normal. Acting like that hadn’t been the most earth shattering moment of her life thus far.

"Where are you going?" She said, standing up to follow Daryl.

"Huntin’" he replied, grabbing his pack and his bow and starting to walk towards the forest, ignoring Carl’s yells of "who’s the little shit now, Daryl!" and "yeah go run away, you just lost to a girl."

He had to get out. He had to get out because if he’d looked at her for one second longer he wouldn’t have walked away, he would have leaned in.

He could still smell her as he walked into the trees, following the trail for a few feet before cutting into the thicker trees at the first sign of a trail. Probably just a rabbit, but if he couldn’t find a deer then half a dozen rabbit would be better than nothing.

He needed this, needed this space, needed to get away from her. He wasn’t oblivious to the things he’d been thinking ever since she’d returned to their group, but he knew there was no point thinking them, that Beth couldn’t possibly think them back and even if she did, she deserved better than an old redneck who didn’t even graduate high school. And the more time he spent with her, the more time he spent thinking he should just kiss her. And one day he would, and that wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. She didn’t deserve that. Even if he were younger and smarter and less of a good-for-nothing redneck from a good-for-nothing redneck family, she would still deserve better than him. Beth Greene deserved sunlight and laughter and she deserved someone who could make her happy. She deserved better than him.

"What a sore loser," Carl was saying, but Beth wasn’t listening. Her mind was still focused on what had just happened. What  _had_ just happened? Maybe she was crazy, maybe she was just delusional and the look he had given her then and the look he had given her in the funeral home, maybe they meant nothing. Maybe Daryl was just some guy who’d kept her alive after the prison, and maybe he was just a friend, just someone who looked out for her because he was just a good guy, simple as that. Maybe he didn’t feel anything for her, but that meant that maybe he did. Maybe there was a small sliver of hope that maybe he saw her more than just Beth Greene: Hershel’s daughter and Judith’s baby sitter. Maybe he cared. Maybe he wanted to kiss her then just as badly as she wanted to kiss him.

"Where’re you going?" Carl asked, as Beth pushed herself up from beside the firepit, grabbing her knife and heading for the trees.

"Huntin’," she replied.


End file.
